


Steady Satellite

by ShowMeAHero



Series: this is my house, and i live in it [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Dysfunctional Family, Family, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Light Angst, Protective Siblings, Sibling Love, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 03:37:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17890757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: “What happened?” Dick asks, after a moment. He looks up at Bruce, in the corner of the room. They haven’t seen each other in a while, now.“He was climbing out of his window into a tree,” Bruce tells him. Dick cranes his neck to look down at Damian’s face, and Damian just grins up at him.





	Steady Satellite

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from ["Stand By You"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwB9EMpW8eY) by Rachel Platten.

Dick slides into the emergency room, and Tim’s waiting for him. Dick nearly slams into him in his haste, but luckily Tim is sturdy and centered and has years of experience of dealing with Dick Grayson.

“He’s fine, he’s the least worried of all of us,” Tim tells him, leading him through a double-door down a moderately busy hallway. Dick’s heart has been slamming in his chest since Tim texted him, making his hands tingly and numb. Tim ducks them into a room with an open door, and Damian’s sitting up on a bed, legs swinging off the side, a white cast encasing his arm from his knuckles nearly to his elbow. Dick doesn’t even think, just scoops the six-year-old up and holds him against his chest.

“Put me  _ down,”  _ Damian says, voice muffled by Dick’s shirt. Despite his words, his unbroken arm comes up and around Dick, holds onto his back, fist wrapping up in the material of his jacket. His legs wrap around Dick’s waist, and Dick just holds him. He bounces him a little bit, like he did when Damian was a baby. Damian just buries his face in Dick’s shoulder.

“What happened?” Dick asks, after a moment. He looks up at Bruce, in the corner of the room. They haven’t seen each other in a while, now.

“He was climbing out of his window into a tree,” Bruce tells him. Dick cranes his neck to look down at Damian’s face, and Damian just grins up at him. Dick’s not supposed to be holding anything as heavy as a six-year-old, and he can feel the strain, but it’s worth it after the sheer terror he felt on the motorcycle ride to the hospital, just to feel Damian’s warmth, his reassuring weight. “He fell.”

“What the hell, Dami?” Dick asks. Damian half-shrugs, as best as he can the way he’s being held. Dick sits him back down on his cot and looks him over; he’s got a couple of scratches, a few bruises, but he’s otherwise fine. “Why were you climbing out of your window?”

“I don’t know,” Damian says. He glances up at Dick, then away, towards Bruce. Dick looks to Tim.

“Hey, Bruce,” Tim says, “I— Wanna come in the hall with me?”

“Oh, perfect, thanks.” Dick claps him on the shoulder as Tim goes to the door. Bruce hesitates for a moment before he goes without another word. The door shuts softly behind them, and Dick turns back to Damian. “So. Kid. What’s the story, why’d you do it? Stupid prank, what?”

Damian glares right back up at him with those goddamn piercing eyes of his. “Because I  _ wanted to.” _

Dick scoots Damian over a little bit on the cot, sits down next to him. Damian doesn’t look at him for a while, so Dick looks away, waits for him to let his shoulders relax. He knows this kid, knows him better than he knows himself most days, and Damian just needs to feel like he’s in control. Eventually, he does calm down; his shoulders droop, he pulls his broken wrist into his lap. After a long while, he looks up at Dick.

“I—” he starts to say, then stops. Dick glances down at him. He does look a lot like Bruce, but, the older he gets, the more he looks like his own person. Dick reaches up and wipes away a little bit of dried mud near Damian’s hairline. “I don’t know. I thought I could sneak out.”

“And where would you go once you were out?” Dick asks. Damian shrugs again.

“I don’t know. Your house?” he says. Dick sighs, pushes Damian’s hair back from his face.

“You can’t get to my house by walking, Dami,” Dick reminds him. “Just call me, I’ll come get you. Anytime, day or night. You know that.”

Damian looks away again, pulls his head from Dick’s grasp and kicks at the underside of the cot with the heels of his sneakers. “It’s not the  _ same.” _

Dick nods. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his jacket and says, “Yeah, I know. It’s not the same. I miss you, too.”

“Then let me move in with you!” Damian exclaims. Dick starts shaking his head, because he’s heard this a  _ thousand  _ times before, and Damian just barrels on, says, “No, no,  _ please,  _ Father is always busy and nobody is ever at home, and even when they  _ are,  _ nobody likes to spend time with  _ me, _ not like—” Damian draws up short, stops abruptly. Dick looks down at him.

“Not like?” Dick prods. Damian looks up at him.

“Not like  _ you  _ do,” Damian says. “It’s not fair.”

“What isn’t?”

“That  _ you  _ were the one who moved out,” Damian says. “You’re the only one who likes me.”

“That’s not true,” Dick says, instinctively. “They all love you, Damian, just as much as I do.”

“No, they don’t.”

“Yes, they—”

“No, they  _ don’t,”  _ Damian interrupts. His voice is firm, nearly breaking. Dick lifts his hand, lets Damian see it and gives him time to move before he slowly puts it at the crown of his head. He pulls Damian into his side, rests his cheek on the top of his head. His messy hair tickles his face. “None of them like me. They think I’m annoying, or— Or that I’m a baby. I’m  _ not.” _

“No, you’re not,” Dick agrees. When Damian first showed up, when Dick was only nineteen, everything changed so goddamn fast. Dick was still going to college and still trying to squirm out from under Bruce’s hold on him, but now he suddenly  _ also  _ had almost sole responsibility of a baby that wasn’t even  _ his.  _ Bruce barely knew what to do; Alfred showed Dick almost everything, and Dick raised him. He did. He  _ raised  _ Damian. And now, Damian’s all of six years old, looking up at Dick and begging him to finish what he started.

The thing is, Dick barely has his  _ own  _ life together. He’s got his apartment, his dog, his cat, his job, but he’s clinging to them. Emotionally, he’s capsized more than once. Mentally, he’s hanging on by a thread — he has a psychiatrist, a therapist, medication, but some days are still much harder than others. He’s trying to get back out there, socially. He’s getting it together, piece by piece, but he’s not  _ whole  _ yet.

Looking at Damian, though, neither is he.

“I’ll talk to Bruce,” Dick says. Damian hugs him too hard, too fast, but Dick just laughs and puts his arm around Damian, holds him against his side. “Let me talk to him, okay?”

“As long as I get to live with you,” Damian says. Dick flicks him in the forehead.  _ “Ow.” _

“Didn’t hurt,” Dick tells him. He leans Damian back, hops up off the cot. “I’m gonna send Tim in to sit with you while I talk to him, alright?”

Damian nods. Dick ruffles his hair and slips into the hallway; Bruce and Tim are sitting in two chairs there, side-by-side, not speaking. They both stand when they see Dick.

“Bruce, can I talk to you for a sec?” Dick asks. Bruce doesn’t break eye contact, just takes a long moment before he nods. Tim edges past Dick back into Damian’s room, shuts the door behind himself. Dick sits down in the chair Tim left unoccupied, runs his hands through his hair. Bruce sits, after a minute.

“What is it?” Bruce asks. Dick glances up at him, chin in his palm, elbow propped on his knee.

“Dami still wants to move in with me,” Dick tells him. “I know we’ve talked about it before, but I think— I think this might be a good thing. Maybe not all at once, but if he just stays over a few nights a week, I think it’d be good for him.”

“Do you?” Bruce asks. Dick frowns. “Dick, you can’t take care of him.”

“Well, clearly  _ you  _ can’t,” Dick shoots back.

“What does  _ that  _ mean,” Bruce says. It’s not a question so much a cold, cold statement, in a tone Dick has heard one too many times in his life. It sends goosebumps running down his arms. “I didn’t throw him out a window.”

“He’s six years old, Bruce,” Dick reminds him. “He shouldn’t be alone long enough to climb out a window and into a tree.”

“I’m not a helicopter parent.”

“No shit.” Dick leans back, stretches his long legs out in front of him, his long arms above him. “I can take care of Damian just fine, I have for years.”

“You’ve been fucked up for a year over God knows what—”

“You don’t know  _ anything  _ about me,” Dick snaps, before he can think better of it. He takes a deep breath, gets himself back under control.

“I know everything about you,” Bruce replies. Dick scratches at the back of his neck.

“You don’t anymore,” Dick says. Bruce just stares at him, expression unchanging, but Dick’s known him for years. Bruce is the one who trained him. He knows what to look for, and Bruce is upset. Well, fine; so is Dick. “I’d like it if you did.”

“Would you?”

“Yes,” Dick says. Even if it shouldn’t be true, after everything Bruce has put him through, it is. “But Damian needs me right now.”

“Oh,  _ he _ needs  _ you,”  _ Bruce says. Dick doesn’t entertain that with a reply. “What would you suggest, then?”

Dick pulls his phone out and opens his calendar, scrolls through the events and schedules plugged into it. “If you want, I can pick him up after school on Thursday, he can stay with me until Monday morning, I’ll drop him off at school then. How does that sound?”

Bruce looks him over. “What about the others?”

“Each of us is different, Bruce,” Dick reminds him. He stands up, towers over Bruce, for once. “That’s what you never got about us, you can’t do the same thing with each of us and expect the same result. Cassie and Dami are different, and they’re different from Steph, and she’s different from Tim, or from Jay, or even me, Bruce.” Dick wants to say more, there are so many things in his mouth that he’s just not saying, but he doesn’t, because Damian needs him and pissing Bruce off isn’t going to get them anywhere right now. “Cassie doesn’t need me like he does. I’ve— I’m the one who’s been there since he first showed up. It’s different.”

Bruce takes that all in. Just, listens to it all silently, then nods. He stands, as well, and Dick feels small again. He tries not to let it get to him.

“Thursday afternoon through Monday morning,” Bruce says. “He still has to do his homework and go to school Fridays. And he has—”

“I know his schedule,” Dick says. Bruce nods, and he follows Dick back into Damian’s room, and Damian actually shouts when Bruce tells him what they’re going to do, throws himself at Dick and hugs  _ him  _ for once. Bruce gave in more quickly than Dick expected, and he’s being quieter than normal, but that’s… something to unpack when Tim and Damian aren’t in the room. For now, Dick’s just wiping dirt off his brother’s face, digging a marker out of his bag to sign his cast, and starting to plan how he’s going to get a bed into his extra room by this weekend.

* * *

Damian falls asleep on Dick’s couch with a slice of pizza literally still in his hand. He’s tucked up against Dick’s side, head on his chest, broken wrist wedged in between their two bodies in his cast. He’s snoring lightly, the light of the television flickering over his tired face. Dick just strokes his fingers through Damian’s hair, so gently, gingerly scratching at his scalp. Damian doesn’t even move, just keeps on sleeping.

Eventually, Dick is gonna get up, throw the pizza back in the box, shut the television off, and carry Damian up to bed. He hasn’t gotten Damian’s furniture in his new room downstairs yet, but Damian’s slept over enough that Dick knows to just dump him on his bed and take the couch himself, because Damian kicks in his sleep. He’ll wake up with Damian looming over him anyways, but it’s nice to dream for a little while.

Anyways, he’ll do all of that eventually. Right now, though, Damian’s quietly sleeping, Dick’s feeling pretty okay about his decisions, and he’s actually even sort of warm and comfortable, for the moment. He’s just going to enjoy it, just for a few more minutes.

**Author's Note:**

> I also actually wrote some books! It was a long road but, I did it! Ta-da! If you want to read either of them, shoot me a message!
> 
> I have a blog now to request imagines - I just like to make people happy. Submit requests [here!](https://imagine-in-the-fandoms.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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